Art Journal Page: One Voice

IMG_6265_wI promise this is the last page (for now) with the wooden block prints – just in case you’re getting bored… I’ve got enough done now to demonstrate what can be done with them at my Art Journal Session at the beginning of August. This one is a little more of a creative statement highlighting the quotation – I love how the Walnut Stain Distress Ink rubbed over the collaged speech bubbles has made them look grubby as well as making them recede into the background. Enough said, I think.

Continue reading

Art Journal Page: Simply Marvellous

IMG_6264_wAnother journal page using my new wooden block stamps – they work so well with the Dylusions paint. It’s just the right consistency to cover the stamp, stick to the page, and not squidge everywhere. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite the same when I used rubber stamps, which squeezed the paint away giving me the tramline outline that I then had to fill in with a paintbrush.

Continue reading

Art Journal Page: Framing Worry

IMG_6261_wMore block printing with my new wooden blocks – this time in Dylusions Crushed Grape and White Linen acrylic paints over a brown/pink/orange acrylic paint background. I’ve added shading with water-soluble graphite and Vintage Photo/Walnut Stain Distress Inks. The text is drawn freehand with Signo Broad white gel pen and embellished with the fine tip version.

The spacing of everything is unplanned when I start… it just so happened that four of the blocks fitted in the height of the page, and the fold breaks the pattern and fools the eye, so it’s not immediately obvious there’d have been an overlap if it had been on a flat sheet of A4. I printed the vertical white framing first, and then spaced the horizontal accordingly. How I manage to fit in the text whilst worrying (ha!) that I’m going to miss out a letter or misspell the word is beyond me, but I seemed to have managed it.

Continue reading

Art Journal Page: God’s handwriting

IMG_6260_wI’ve just taken delivery of a set of wooden fabric printing blocks, a commercial take on the carved versions typically seen in India/Indonesia. As well as printing onto fabric, of course they’re suited to printing onto paper as well, and what better way of using them than in an art journal? This page is in my Moleskine journal that has been somewhat unloved since starting art journaling in 2011. I already had a pink/purple background in place, and I augmented this with some dabs of Dylusions paint. The image transfer of some heuchera leaves was also already on the page, and I’ve blended the edges with some more paint as well as adding a smear of orange to colour. The block prints can be seen in purple and white at the borders. I was quite pleased with the right side especially, as the paint acted more as a glue, pulling off previous paint layers creating a serendipitous distress effect. The text is free-drawn in Signo white pigment pen and outlined with a fine black pigment pen, except for the final two words which I traced so that it was a little more ‘special’. For hand-drawn text, I found the book Hand Lettering: Simple, Creative Styles for Cards, Scrapbooks & More by Marci Donley and DeAnn Singh really useful as something to bounce off. We’ll be using the blocks in the Art Journaling Session on 3rd August, for which one place is still available to book here.

Continue reading

Art Journal Page: Nature’s Little Fireworks

IMG_6237_w

I’ve been a bit busy this last week getting things done in the garden (why did I have so much decking put in?), and getting samples made with the latest Craftwork Cards collections ready for the TV shows next week. Oh, and leading a workshop at The Studio yesterday at which there were some super mixed media art journal covers made.

And I got asked – what are we doing on Monday night? Referring, of course, to my monthly art journaling session. At the time, I couldn’t remember what I idea I’d had, but it came back to me today, and this is the result of my trying out the technique.

Continue reading

Art Journal Page: My Left Hand & Me

IMG_6214_wI’ve no idea why this idea popped into my head before I was fully awake this morning. Aside from, perhaps, art journaling being on my mind as I’m leading a workshop on Saturday… A quick dog walk and fitting some artificial turf helped my alertness level meet my creative muse and out came the paint and Sharpies. The background was pre-done and is a combination of distress paints. Over this I traced my hand, then painted over the rest of the page with Dylusions white paint on a make up sponge. The thin layer allows the background to show through, as well as sealing the page for the Sharpies. One of the unique selling points of the Dylusions paints is that it doesn’t clog nibs – and that is very true – the Sharpies drew perfectly with no annoying bleed or blocked nibs (a sharp contrast to, say, drawing on gesso). Further embellishment with my Signo broad white pigment gel pen and it is done.

Continue reading

Art Journal Page: Industrial Grunge

IMG_6190_wThe background for this art journal page was a little bit of a happy accident. I’d covered the page with swipes of dark acrylic paints with a hint of picked raspberry, and feeling it was too dark, I then used what was left on a blending tool I’d been used to apply Dylusions Squeezed Orange Paint to lighten it, and a superb rusty effect came into being. I embellished it with some Vintage Photo Distress Embossing Powder for the grid work, stamped a couple of times with the blueprint in archival inks and then added the text using a combination of archival inks on stamps, freehand drawing and painting, and my trusty pigment pens. As normal, took me as long to find the sentiment, but I love this quote – really does explain the rationale behind my art journaling!

Continue reading

Art Journal Page: All Art Requires Courage

IMG_6134_w

Tonight sees another of my art journaling sessions at The Studio, and we’ll be playing with the Dylusions Paints – blendable acrylics which are ideal for making backgrounds, and work well when used on rubber stamps as well. The text on this layout is stamped with Carnation Red Archival Ink and outlined with ultra fine tip Sharpie. The swirls are stamped with the Squeezed Orange before being dried and outlined and embellished with Signo white gel pen.

Art Journaling: Dylusions Paints

IMG_6033_w

It’s been a while since I managed to sit down and create – I’ve been supervising renovation work at home and making tea every 90 minutes to keep the builders suitably hydrated. Rather than using a half inch paintbrush last week, I was attacking walls with a roller and emulsion. That’s left the room nicely decorated, but my carpal tunnel playing up.

Any hoo, last week a long awaited shipment arrived, including a set of Dylusions Paint by Ranger. Why on earth would I want yet more paints? They are billed as blendable acrylics, and they certainly do that. They come in wide jars, are quite fluid and smooth on beautifully with a foam blending sponge. The paint spreads thinly, but seems to be highly pigmented, so gives excellent coverage. It seems to have a little slow dry retarder in it, enabling the blendability which is excellent. That also makes the clean up easier as the paint was slower to dry on stencils and stamps. Thin layers on absorbent surfaces were very quick to dry. Subsequent layers took longer, even with a heat tool to speed up the process. Opacity in the main is good, with the white showing good coverage of the colours beneath. Also, a little paint goes a long way – each pot is likely to last a long time: all the stencilling on the image above was achieved with just the leftovers on the sponge. I’m certainly not disappointed with them, and will be introducing them to my art journal group sessions in due course.

Also never been used until this page: new letter stamps from Hero Arts – Kelly’s Shadow Letters and Kelly’s Bold Font, stamped in archival Jet Black and augmented with Signo white gel pen (thin and broad).